The standing order the industrialized western world once stood solidly and uniformly behind was the ideal which forbid the negotiation with terrorists and especially not to negotiate the trade of prisoners no matter who was held by the terrorists. This was the position that was initially taken because of the rash of hijackings of passenger aircraft. President Obama just stepped away from this principle by trading five Taliban prisoners who were some of their top leaders and trainers for one American soldier. The fact that he did not follow the set procedure and notify the Congress of the trade and receive their agreement will prove to be the least of the ramifications down the road, or should I say further down the slippery slope. Today the President of the United States traded five terror leaders for one soldier and now before too much longer the United States will end up offering hundreds or even thousands of terrorists for a single soldier or possibly just to be granted an audience in order to pretend to negotiate a peace which all know cannot be reached. How can I predict this? Easy, Israel started trading three terrorists for a single soldier and within a couple of decades Israel traded over a thousand terrorists for Gilad Shalit, and even worse, they agreed under pressure from the United States government to offer over a hundred terrorists just to sit and be insulted in what was recognized by all from the start to be a farce dressed up as a peace process. Israel had held out for years before finally breaking their policy of never ever to negotiate with terrorists. How did Israel end up starting to negotiate with terrorists? The same way other western nations ended up agreeing to negotiate with terrorists, it seemed like the necessary and right thing to do at the time. Once Israel had negotiated the first time with terrorists the barrage became inevitable and was helped along when some Israelis bought onto the idea that negotiations could be carried on with Yasser Arafat and the PLO as long as they took another name for the sake of negotiations, thus was born the Palestinian Authority and Yasser Arafat was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize for his willingness to be transformed from one of the world’s terrorist leaders into an advocate for peace. Of course Yasser Arafat actually had not changed; just the honors and treatment he was to be granted by the western nations changed and the blind spot they developed in order to continue that farce only grew with time. That very same blind spot grew sufficiently that it now conceals the terrorist heart beating in Mahmoud Abbas.

The transformation from never negotiating with terrorists to trading a thousand plus terrorist prisoners for a single soldier and even offering to trade over one hundred terrorist prisoners in exchange for false peace talks took a simple matter of a few decades at most and might happen almost instantly by comparison as the United States will be traversing a path already paved by Israel making the transition that much the easier. The giving of an inch and compromising what had been initially presented as an unalterable, cast in iron policy and shattering that policy and principle has been done so completely that it can never be reassembled with anywhere near as little effort. Transgressing principle the first time is often unbelievably stressful and difficult but once transgressed, the principle will take near beyond insurmountable climb to reclaim and reestablish, especially that those who are the opposition will hold the controlling position as back down and folding once simply makes the enemy redouble their efforts to push to shatter the next principle and then the next as once they break the first ring, the center, the heart becomes the target and the susceptibility of your heart makes it perilously endangered. So, America is now one giant additional step closer to fulfilling the promise made by President Obama during his first campaign; to fundamentally transform the United States of America. This begs the question of how long before President Obama makes good on the second most ominous of his campaign promises, “Under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.” Oh, never mind, he just did that one today so that makes two in a row. At this rate he might keep every promise he has ever made by Labor Day. I guess the dreams of hope and change are finally on course to be realized now that President Obama does not have to face the electorate ever again. Or at least we can hope he never faces another election to any office.

The Israelis have known all about the price paid for releasing terror prisoners for decades. The recidivation rate of released terror perpetrators approaches 100% which is reason enough to argue that releasing such prisoners is counterproductive and endangers all of society. In the cases Israel has witnessed and suffered through are made all the worse as releasing terrorists, even to include the terror masters and planners and those guilty of multiple acts of terror responsible for murdering of dozens upon dozens of lives, is actually accentuated and made even more insufferable has been the celebratory parades, huge demonstrations, and the recognition and adulation for the released terrorists goes even further beyond the cusp of acceptability by their societies. These recent released terrorists were met with huge supportive demonstrations and the sharing of sweets and general celebratory actions along with the Palestinian government rewarding the returning terrorist with large monetary awards and positions within the government, many simply honorary positions where they receive a salary but have no actual function officially though it is well documented that these positions are remunerations to give them salaries for their return and continuing terror operations. Many released terrorists which have been forced over the years every time any third party, be it the United Nations, European Union, United States or other outside third party pushing the grand, new peace proposal, have demanded Israel release some number of terror prisoners in an act of good faith in order to bribe the Palestinian to come to the negotiations table. Of course there is never any enforced demand of the Palestinians to make concessions to bring Israel to the negotiations as it is understood that the Israelis are always ready to try and negotiate peace and willing to try despite how futile the effort may prove.

There has been a development which should have convinced the Americans that releasing terrorist prisoners from the Guantanamo Detainment Facility is fool hearty, as one of the foremost suspects of being behind the planning and also directing the Benghazi attack, Sufian bin Qumu, resulted in the destruction of the American Consulate and the Deaths of Ambassador Stevens, Sean Smith, Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said concerning questions of whether the attack in Benghazi was an al-Qaeda operation, “There’s no indication at this point that core al-Qaeda was involved or planned these attacks. And these are not official affiliates of al-Qaeda.” Ms. Psaki’s statement appears to be contradicted by Sufian bin Qumu’s Guantanamo file which states that the former detainee has historic ties to the al-Qaeda network, at one time training “…at Osama bin Laden’s Torkham camp.” Tom Joscelyn, a senior fellow with Foundation for Defense of Democracies, identified Qumu was connected to al-Qaeda “and bin Qumu was identified as an Al Qaeda member who was receiving a monthly stipend for his family. He was important enough to Al Qaeda to record his monthly stipend on a 9/11 financier’s laptop, which should tell you something about his place within the Al Qaeda sphere.” All in all, the suspicions that a former al-Qaeda member was responsible for operational planning and execution of the terrorist strike on the American Consulate in Benghazi after being released from custody in Guantanamo Detainment Facility speaks volumes on the wisdom, or lack thereof, of releasing hardened terrorists back into the population and having expectations that they are not going to return to terrorist activities.

One of the reasons which should have been learned from the Cold War is that those who are ideological adherents to a radical and extreme philosophy should never be mistaken for reformed no matter the evidence. Ideological extremists are usually intelligent and are fully capable of acting in a manner which will please their captors and persuade them to believe they have reformed and are a reasonably safe risk if released. Unfortunately, as has been proven throughout history, die-hard ideologues and true-believers cannot be rehabilitated and will return to their revolutionary, or terrorist, activities immediately after release as that is the main cause and driving force in their lives. Still, President Obama continues to seek nations who will be willing to allow Guantanamo detainees so they can be released and the facility closed fulfilling a campaign promise from his first term. The President does not care if they will return to terrorist activity as that is a problem he has refused to take ownership. President Obama fully believes that terrorism will trail off and end as a result of his foreign policy which is actually not having a foreign policy beyond ignoring all things beyond America’s shores. The sole apparent foreign policy position President Obama has enforced has been enabling Islamists while doing everything possible to sacrifice Israel on the table of appeasement. We have all witnessed President Obama from his speech in Cairo early in his first term and his first speech given beyond American borders to his backing of President Morsi and backing the Muslim Brotherhood and his refusal to support the Green Revolution in Iran and his refusal to take any actions to end the societal genocide in Syria and the fact that one of President Obama’s closest friends who heads another nation being Turkey’s Prime Minister Erdogan. These small snapshots of President Obama over his years in the White House give a strong indication of his apparent backing of Islamist leadership taking hold throughout the Middle East and North Africa and may further explain the drive in conjunction with the Palestinian leadership to force Israel to release over one-hundred terrorist murderers including some who had committed the most violent and horrific terror attacks. The proven view of President Obama and the feckless actions by Secretary of State Kerry should give the Israeli leadership sufficient reason to resist all further pressures from the United States no matter the potential ramifications as to allow Obama and Kerry free hands to mold Israeli dealings with the Palestinians as even a total pulling of backing from the White House would prove to do less damage over time than agreeing to the framework deal which is being sold by Kerry and his entourage.

What a dilemma for the government on how to address the prickly problem that hunger striking terrorists and other assorted prisoners being held on security issues. According to International Law it is illegal to force feed such prisoners unless they can be ruled in mortal danger or are suffering from some form of mental instability. This applies even if the prisoners should become in danger of death. Even then the prisoners can continue to refuse food and the government authorities holding them technically must not take actions even to save the prisoners’ lives. But when there are approximately one-hundred prisoners who have all joined the hunger strike demanding immediate trials or to be released what does the government do to address the situation? This is especially true when their claims seems so reasonable, especially those who are being held on political charges of being potentially dangerous as planners and organizers of terrorist attacks and training. Such prisoners have not actually committed any crime yet have been determined to be a serious threat of fomenting or aiding terrorist functions including attacks on the public.

Making this situation even more difficult is that the prisoners’ hunger strikes are being taken up by a number of human rights activists who are demanding that the government either charge and give a speedy trial to these hunger striking security prisoners or release them if there are no charges to be brought. What should be done with prisoners who it has been determined require being held for a thus far undetermined amount of time as the threat they are suspected of posing warrants such imprisonment by the government acting in the protection of the people, all the people, both their own citizens and those of others throughout the Western World. The human rights activists claim that since some of those held have not actually committed any crime and are simply being held due to the positions they held in what the imprisoning country has classified as a terrorist organization which allow their claim that the leaders of such a group may be imprisoned without charge as a precautionary action. It is likely that eventually the human rights activists will refer their charges against the government’s position claiming the right to preemptively hold these political prisoners to the ICJ in The Hague (International Court of Justice). This will present a particularly difficult challenge should the right to detain security prisoners without charge attempt to be defended by the government.

What has been most interesting about these particular hunger strikers has been the lack of news coverage either their hunger striking or the objections and protests of the human rights advocates have received. With the coverage that the mainstream media, especially the European media, has given the Palestinian hunger strikers held in Israeli prisons one would expect equal vociferous protest headlines in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the BBC, the AFP and other international mainstream news sources denouncing the continued incarceration and the ongoing forced feedings being foist upon these prisoners against their wills at the United States high security facility at the Guantanamo Naval Base on the Cuban Islands. One would expect the human rights activists to be even more incensed about these particular hunger strikers as well as the rest of the terror security prisoners continuing to be held at Guantanamo as President Obama made promises he would close the facility. Especially since it has been at Guantanamo is where torture has been rumored to have taken place as well as other deprivations which had been vociferously protested at the end of the Bush Administration but have been mostly silent since President Obama was sworn in as President. We will have to wait and see whether the recent pronouncement by President Obama to finally close the Guantanamo Holding Facility using the impetus of the sequester cuts as the leverage to at last accomplish this. The problems of whether or not to release these prisoners or, if it is decided they continue to require being held, where can the government imprison the most dangerous of these terror threats. This issue will very soon become an issue that’s time has come and the human rights advocates will finally be granted the front page coverage they have thus far been denied. Will the public display of the realities of the situations that must be confronted when guarding and fighting against terrorism in all of its manifestations by the United States mitigate the position and condemnations the Israelis have faced in their difficult fight against terrorism or will the world continue to pretend that terrorism against Israel is completely separate from the terror faced by the rest of the world and terror against Israel is understandable while terrorism against everybody else is an evil they fight out of necessity. My deepest fear is that the moral relativism which allows many progressives to differentiate between terrorism against Europe, the United States, and the rest of the world to be completely separate and worthy of a united effort to eradicate while expressing understanding and tacit, or even vociferous, support of terrorism which targets Israel, Israeli interests around the world, or Jews because such terrorism has a worthy cause.

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